The Hot Air Machine

  SOMETHING I’ve seen socialists groan and complain about repeatedly, one of many things they find an issue with, is wage labor. They consider it coercion, theft, or slavery for someone to render their manpower to another in exchange for money. In the most recent iteration of this complaint that I have laid eyes on it went something like this: “Having to work for hours every week to barely make ends meet is slavery!” Now, there is a lot that could be said. First, we could attack the umbrella that these types of complaints fall under. That umbrella is a general abhorrence of having to work for one’s living. They are desperate for Marx’s post-scarcity society wherein we see “[t]he free development of individualities…which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them[,]” or, i.e., a bunch of free time for people to sit around and fart around. The psychological drawbacks of excess ...

          WHEN I first sat down to type up this article, I was a bit confused on the manner in which I should begin. This has happened once or twice before. While something usually comes to me, the best remedy – which I am going to be using now – is to simply jump right into the main idea. No introductory dilly-dallying.           Both welfare and foreign aid have been hot topics in recent years. The ever-leftward Democrats have been calling for welfarist initiatives such as Medicare-for-All and outright expansions of the welfare state. The Trump administration was defined by a platform bitterly opposed to international aid , which lead to the usual squealing of “nativism” and (somehow) “fascism”. To a certain extent, it seems as if most political commentators and the citizenry see these two topics as distinct; welfare is domestic policy, foreign aid is foreign policy. However, what I want to propose in this art...

  IN response to the repeated failures of socialist countries - whether from economic or political crises - the favorite rescuing device of far-left apologists is to cry, “It wasn’t real socialism!” Since it, ostensibly, wasn’t true, orthodox socialism, then we don’t know what it’s like for true socialism to be implemented, meaning we can’t critique practical (in contrast to theoretical) socialism. This recourse is, of course, fallacious, and can be refuted in three easy ways: Noting how socialists, in other contexts, will refer to these countries as sources of socialist pride. Noting how historical socialists, contemporaneous with these regimes, affirmed their socialist nature. Responding in kind, “Well, they certainly weren’t capitalist!” The final point is my favorite, especially since I made it. Socialist apologists might assert that these nations had capitalist characteristics, or were forms of “state capitalism”. However, you either have - exclusively - capitalism or so...

            BEING young myself and active on the Internet, I am well-aware of the condition and outlook of many adolescents, particularly in America. Their financial literacy skills are below average , and they overeat instant ramen that is an atrocity to physical health . Many of the Internet celebrities I follow, who are in this 20-30 age group, do make reference to their issues, to their lack of finances and their discontent with how society is in general. Life is not looking good for these kids, and we can expect that by the time they are in their 30s they will be tired, overworked, and have making a family as the last thing on their mind.           How do they cope with this? Most of them find ways to incorporate their levels of anxiety and stress into their lifestyles, remaining apathetic about other concerns. To be explicit, again, they tend to seek out political programs that will h...